Investing in innovation: Introducing the latest Rising Star Research Grant cohort

Professor Hui’s project, “Enlightenment Musical Philosophy, Sensibility, and Global Aesthetics”, investigates how 18th-century musical ideas, practices, and narratives shaped major intellectual shifts during the Enlightenment. The research interrogates music as a cross-disciplinary mode of inquiry into the sympathetic and sensible self, bridging the fields of philosophy, literature, religion, medicine, and politics. 

The funding will support Professor Lee’s project, titled “(Im)migration Attitudes in a Highly Mobile Society: Policy Feedback and Global Comparisons”. With approaches including documenting the attitudinal antecedents and consequences of immigration policies through original surveys and extending these findings to a comparative global framework via international collaboration, the research addresses critical gaps in the field, such as the lack of understanding regarding how specific policy features shape public support and the scarcity of research on non-Western contexts.  

Professor Wang’s project, “AI Transparency: Synthesis, Conceptualization, and Operationalization”, identifies inconsistencies in existing AI conceptual frameworks and practical implementations. By addressing these through a series of studies that offer novel conceptual, theoretical, and methodological insights, the research will not only enhance the scholarly understanding of AI transparency but also offer practical guidance for the design and assessment of transparent AI systems. 

The awarded project, “Aptamer-based drug discovery for cancer therapy”, is built on an AI-enabled aptamer discovery platform and complementary in vivo selection strategies. Through this research, Professor Yu will develop next-generation aptamer therapeutics to address three critical barriers in oncology, which are immunosuppressive tumour microenvironments, undruggable intracellular drivers, and restricted drug access to the central nervous system. 

With his project, “Bank Accounting, Financial Stability, and Sustainable Credit Markets”, Professor Zhang will examine the potential implications of the newly introduced bank accounting standards, with particular focus on their effects on financial system stability, credit market development, borrower investment decisions, and other economic outcomes. The findings will provide a nuanced understanding of how credit loss accounting standards may interact with broader economic outcomes and inform policy considerations for regulators and financial institutions. 

The funded project, “Catalytic Waste Valorization for Sustainable Fuels and Circular Carbon Technologies”, will advance sustainable waste valorisation by developing an integrated waste-to-resource platform. By pioneering hybrid catalytic–biological processes to convert diverse waste streams into high-value fuels and chemicals, Professor Zhao bridges molecular catalyst design with scalable engineering. The initiative aims to translate laboratory innovation into robust, closed-loop solutions that reduce emissions and support a carbon-neutral future.